GAP Relay recap #3 is written by Scott Wardle. He is a 59 year old bad ass that lives north of Pittsburgh. He has run 20 marathons, with 9 Boston Qualifiers and a PB of 3:07 (achieved as a 56 year old). Scott is a unique guy, his recap is a bit lengthy and is about more than running the relay, it is worth taking a few minutes to read it.
Tony, to review the GAP Relay, I really must go back to the first one in 2018. I remember seeing an email that this 150 mile relay from Pittsburgh to Cumberland was going to be run that fall and that registration was about to start. I immediately called your brother Mike and said that we have to get a team together. He agreed and we established the criteria that it had to be a masters, all over 40, team. I convinced my company to help sponsor us and since Mike has organized races before and done such amazing things with Team Cassie, he was able to reach out to some of the fastest masters runners in the area. Once we were able to confirm and register the team that first year, I knew some of the guys but was well aware of everyone’s reputation as a badass runner!
I’ve been asked many times why I run, and my answer is always the same…redemption! I was always the fastest scrawny little kid on the block growing up (my father would call me Speedy Gonzalez or Speed Racer) and I did run track into Jr. High; I wanted to be like Steve Prefontaine, Dwight Stones, or Bob Beamon (damn, I am old). But this was the 70’s, and I grew up in the era of sex, drugs, and rock and roll man! Without getting into detail, over the next decades I made some bad choices and went down a road that I thought that I would never travel. A few of the people that I knew are no longer with us, and others never reached their full potential. I could have very likely suffered the same fate had I made one more bad decision and it is ONLY by the grace of God that I can run as well as I do and am so healthy at this point in my life. I was a really good kid and I don’t think anyone who has ever known me would say that I am, or was, a bad person; quite the opposite actually. My favorite C. S. Lewis quote is from the Screwtape Letters, “The road to hell is a gentle slope, there are no signs, there are no mileposts.” You just find yourself in a place that you though that you would never be. However, I have been able to channel my inner crazy toward good things and I think that this along with the ability to ignore discomfort has served me well in running and to regain control of my life. I’ve asked myself, “Am I a better runner in spite of it? Or because of it?” I’ll really never know the answer but suspect the latter. In her book, Dandelion Growing Wild, American marathoner Kim Jones poses this same question. She tells her story of extreme dysfunction and wonders the same thing. I would say that this holds true for life in general as well, as Richard Nixon said, “The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire.” I’ve had some people who I’ve competed against ask me what the difference may be as to why I may have finished ahead of them. I think that persevering as I did and changing who I am certainly plays a part in it. It may also be my willingness to train at 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning while I’m sure they’re all cozy in bed! Running has given me so much. I’ve metaled at all distances from 5K to 26.2 miles at one point or another and I’ve had experiences and seen places I otherwise would not have seen. Running has been instrumental in changing me and helping me at a time when I needed it most; I also would never have met my Fiancée, whom I love and is my best friend, Christen. In a weird way we met through the Boston Marathon. I remember sitting on a curb in Cincinnati where I ran my first BQ. I was sobbing and a female police officer asked if I was all right. Of course, I said, “never better.” I also remember how it felt the first time I heard the roar turning down Boylston Street. It’s kind of like the line in the Talking Heads song Life During War Time, “well, how did I get here?”. I even for a few years had a portion of the PGH YMCA Turkey Trot named after me. The 5K and the 5 Mile races were typically always run at the same time. One year they announced that they would now be staggering the starts by 30 minutes, I called the race director and asked if I could register for both races. My idea was to run the 5K and then change my bid, beeline for the start of the 5 miler and try to medal in both races. That first year, me and another local runner, T C Collins, had the same idea. The next year it became a combined time challenge event named after us that raised additional money for the charity. It was quite surreal that year. I had done nothing all that remarkable other than seeing an opportunity to challenge myself. I wasn’t terminally ill or anything; I was still alive and suddenly a race with 6500 people had shirts, bids, and beer mugs with my name on them! I did medal in both races that year and two of my boys ran it as well (the next year the event was ruined because they staggered the starts by 45 minutes, and the year after that, the new sponsor dropped our names). It’s almost been like a dream at times and given the things I’ve been through, I frequently ask myself, “how did this happen?”. My rediscovery of my love of running and reading coincided with a spiritual awakening that came at a time that allowed me to be there for my family and regain a successful professional life. I lost my brother along the way and my father suffered a stroke and lived in a compromised state and a steady decline for the final portion of his life. Through running I was able to become my father’s son so to speak (I mean this rhetorically but my father at one time did hold the PGH city record for the 100 yard dash). Running was always there for me through these times, it was something I always felt I had control over when other things I did not. Most times that I run; it is a spiritual experience for me. That’s why I almost always run alone. To quote Eric Lidell, the 1924 Olympic Gold Medal sprinter, “when I run, I feel God’s pleasure.”
That all being somewhat uncomfortably said (enough of the sappy shit), I wanted to talk about what running means to be in general as context for how I felt going into the first GAP Relay. I had never done a relay before. Let alone one that would require each runner to run three competitive races through the forest in the middle of the night! As my company, DiMarco Construction, sponsors our team, I am the captain of the team and was very nervous about planning and logistics. We knew we had put together a strong team and I remember going to a GAP informational meeting at P3R after work one evening and was asked what I thought our PPM would be. Everyone came to attention when I said…6:30’s! As the race approached, I remember saying to Christen the night before that I felt like I might not belong on a team of this makeup. She assured me that I did, but as I said, I knew some of the guys on the team, but have heard of everyone and their running reputations preceded them! It was a team with pedigree and although I had some athletic ability, I wasn’t so sure of myself. I’ve been a 5.0 league tennis player and should/could have played college tennis. I was an expert skier and on a skateboard team as well (never much for conventional team sports). But I certainly never ran in college. Let’s just say that I felt a little intimidated as a runner. Sitting in the van that first year, I was again asking myself, “how did I get here?” I remember that my first leg was from Rockwood to Garrett and it was pitch dark already. Although I do train in the darkness of the early morning generally, the light bubble of the headlamp that night took some getting used to. I felt that I ran well, and on my second leg from Dawson to Connellsville I felt that by my standards, I nailed it (I think those are the correct legs…not sure). I remember texting Christen somewhere just after midnight after that run that I feel comfortable on this team. My point is this race presents a lot of pressure. You need to get “up” three times throughout the night and we all definitely don’t want to let our teammates down.
That’s really the beauty of this race. Not only are you running on one of the top Rail to Trails locations in the nation, but it’s the pulling together a bunch of guys (8 man team in our case) from completely different backgrounds, professions, experience, and each with a different story who just love to run. It’s an adventure and you are all in it together! It creates friendships and stories that will last a lifetime.
That first year there was a lot to learn. We won the race, but there were a few hairy moments logistically. P3R I think learned a lot as well as well. We finished so early in Pittsburgh and the finish party didn’t start until 11:00 and it was still only 7:30. So obviously the sweaty, smelly, sleep deprived derelicts went to Jacks Saloon on Carson that opens at 7:00! We were crushed at the after party! Ha! I don’t remember exactly what I even said to the County Commissioner when he congratulated us. I’m certain that our condition contributed to P3R started us three hours back in 2019. It was cool that year that they started us that much later and to see the promotion in essence challenging us “to see how many teams they can pass. They’re just that fast”. We ended up passing all but two teams, I think. You have to pity the poor bastards that crossed the finish line only to realize moments later that they lost by two hours!
Each year we’ve had mostly the same runners. And as Brett joined us for two years and we had Steve this year as Gar was focused on the October Boston, it’s just been another opportunity to get to know people better and add to the stories. As we all lost a year of our lives, due to the pandemic; I think we were all a little more anxious to do the relay again this year. I know I was. Right from the start this year we knew two things….a team had come to push us, and we were messing things us from the very beginning. As you got lost warming up running out to the second leg Tony, somehow, I was thinking that it was my leg anyway. It really threw me however, when another team already had a substantial lead and that your brother Mike was handing me the bracelet! It was supposed to be you I though. As bad as that was, I still thought that I was running what would have been the third leg and not the second. I was running a 5 K pace for a 3 mile leg, but in reality was running a 6 mile leg! I don’t run on a watch for short distance, only anything 10 miles or over in a race. I just kept thinking to myself, “this the longest damn three miles I’ve ever run!”. I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t hitting the bridge going into McKeesport! As I said, we were behind for the early legs. That’s when “coach” Tony stepped in and started to mix it up for us in order to get control of things. It was the first time that I ever switched vans during the race, and I wasn’t the only one; most of us did. It made this year unique because of it. The strategy worked and by my second leg, the combination of our top horses running some longer legs, got us a small lead. As I was waiting in Dawson to run the leg to Connellsville, it was apparent I was running against the challenging team’s top runner. As I ran with Queen songs playing in my head, I was determined that he would not catch me, and I felt as though I left with and kept a very respectable pace (only we will get that musical reference). That is, until I had probably about a mile left when I could feel something in my right Glut muscle tearing. Had this been a training run, I would have stopped. As it was, I dropped my pace considerably as I was feeling sharp pain and loss of support of my right leg. I did finish, and although I gave time back, he did not catch me (this earned me a trip to UPMC Sports Med in the coming week with a 30% anterior gluteal tendon tear and no Cleveland 26.2 the following weekend, but also the right to start drinking beer around 3:00 in the morning!). As a team, we never looked back. We overcame a comedy of errors and came together through this race after a rough start. We changed things up, had people step up at opportune times, and ended up winning again by a large margin. I’ve not read other’s reviews yet, but as we mixed it up, I’m sure we’ll all say similar things and it may have been our finest hour as a team. It was cool that a team pushed us this year and even tough Brett and I insulted them to their face at the after party, they really weren’t a bad bunch of guys.
I would have to say that I think it may have been P3R’s finest hour as well. All the exchange stations were well manned, and the planning of the event was the best yet (please keep it as an October event, and running the other direction is easier as well). The people who work for P3R, the volunteers, and the people of the towns that come out to make us feel special are remarkable (especially Whisett). It’s been a true honor and highlight of my year to run with you all, and an even greater honor to have you as friends. Thanks, Michael, for helping me captain the team and providing a van and Dave again for his unique humor and to drive (and thanks to Curt too for getting behind the wheel this year). Thanks, Tony, for the cool singlets that you provide and make every year. And thanks everyone for giving your all in the race as you do each year. We’ll be baaaaaack!
N of 1 Running 